Britain's sad bid to ape American traditions - trick or treat, I ask you… - continues this month as retailers launch Black Friday sales even though we have no Thanksgiving Day holiday to precede it.
Amazon has been flogging off watches, electric toothbrushes, power tools and assorted second-rate fare this week, but will Dixons …

"ape American traditions"

Try doing a bit more research.

Trick or Treating comes from the old tradition of "Guising" (as in disguise) which dates back to at least the end of the 19th century in Scotland and Ireland and versions are known from much earlier eg in the Middle Ages such as in the form of Christmas Wassailing.

menaces have origins in Oxford Uni in 1790?

'I knew a guy' who regularly did 'Mischievous Night' (sic) Up North as a kid, gates off hinges, poo bags on fire on doorstep , many rather naughty things - assumed at the time that it was vaguely celtic and ancient. I doubt that a few sweet morsels would have bought off the hordes of malfaiteurs tho!

WTF has mischief night got to do with trick or treat? It's an old tradition related to bonfire night. Some claim it's actually a tribute to Fawkes, Catesby et al and in some way indicates unity with the plotters. Not sure I buy that, but it's certainly nothing to do with haloween.

Sure there's a lot of mischief of the burning poo on the doorstep and poo on the doorknob variety, but most of it relates to bonfire night itself. Fireworks down outside toilets (a la Keith Moon) were always a favourite. Setting light to ready built bonfires was another, hence most people would build their fires on the day. I seem to recall that most of the mischief revolved around bangers, the exploding shite being a perenial favourite. To do this you would get plenty of dog shit, bury a banger in it almost up to the top, light the banger and scarper. The resulting explosion was supposed to spread excrement everywhere. For this reason it was best carried out in an enclosed space such as a ginnel. Alternetively placing the IED on some poor unsuspecting persons doorstep and ringing the bell was the preferred tactic of some. The effectveness of this was usually somewhat diminished by the short fuse, so the banger would usually go off before the victim opened the door.

Unfortunately the way bangers explode means that it wasn't particularly effective at spreading the poo around. More often than not most of the explosive force was expended out of the top of the firework. Since this end wasn't buried in the faeces the poo would remain largely unaffected. That didn't stop kids trying it year on year though.

I was told years ago that A&E not only had to deal with a lot of kids with burns and other firework related injuries, but a lot of temporary deafness from kids who'd let off bangers in enclosed spaces.

I think it's less popular these days partly because of trick or treat, partly because kids are finding it harder to get hold of fireworks, partly because the good old cheap banger was banned and mostly because fireworks are avaible for much longer than they used to be so the attraction spreads over a much longer period and is diluted.